Mobile devices that incorporate digital camera and position sensing technology are becoming increasingly common. Because such mobile devices can be rotated in an arbitrary direction when capturing pictures or videos, there is a lack of uniformity in orientation of the pictures or video images when the pictures or videos are stored on the device. For example, a user may take a picture with the mobile device rotated slightly to the right or left. Sometimes such rotation is intentional (it represents the desired picture composition), but sometimes it is not. Regardless of whether the rotation is intentional, the user may want to adjust the picture later. Rotation of pictures or images is typically a manual process (such as with a photo editing application), and can be difficult and imprecise.
Differences in orientation between pictures or video images can be problematic when performing common image processing tasks. For example, when comparing a picture with one or more other pictures, differences in orientation, such as rotation, can increase the difficulty of finding matching pictures or matching features within the pictures. Similarly, when matching features between two or more pictures during stitching of the pictures into a mosaic or panoramic view, differences in orientation can make the task much more difficult to perform successfully and accurately.
Therefore, there exists ample opportunity for improvement in technologies related to picture and image capture and processing using orientation information.